


Let Our Hearts Say Hello

by MurphyAT



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Big Birthday Bash, Communication, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Jealous Steve Rogers, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Period Typical Attitudes, Possessive Bucky Barnes, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Wearing Makeup
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29969220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurphyAT/pseuds/MurphyAT
Summary: They've been making time for years now, on and off, and Bucky is dizzy over Steve. But he's sure Steve is too honest to live a lie; soon enough, he'll find a girl smart enough to see his value. So Bucky keeps up appearances for them both. Still, every time he takes out a dame, it takes forever to get back into Steve’s good graces (and pants) again. It’s that damn contrary pride of his. Bucky loves him for it.They're on the outs on the day he walks in the front door early to find Steve with his face made up like a pinup girl, and his brain dribbles out his ears.Or:Steve: -puts on makeup-Bucky: "Whatta Man, Whatta Man, Whatta Man, What a Mighty Good Man"
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Smut Writing 101: Something You Shouldn't've Seen





	Let Our Hearts Say Hello

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Bucky Barnes! Have some communication and sex with the love of your life, on the house.
> 
> The rating will increase to explicit in Chapter 2, which I'm posting tomorrow at 7PM EST. A huge hurrah for my roomie and friend [Luddleston](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luddleston/works) who drew Steve in all his glory.

_“…Someday, for whatever my man is, I am his forevermore,”_ finished the crooning radio in the corner of his coworkers’ favored bar, and Bucky sighed into his drink.

Beside him, Frank LaMonica ( _also in Accounting, weak for cigs_ ) nudged him even harder than usual—he was on his second pint and they’d only been at Herb’s for a half hour. “What’s got you all worked up, Barnes? It’s Friday night! We don’t gotta work for two whole days. You should be on cloud nine with the rest of us.”

Bucky looked around theatrically, eyes wide. “Is that where we are?” he gasped. “Here I thought I was at Herb’s on Friday night with a buncha bachelors who can’t get a date to save their blessed lives.”

There was a general round of ‘yeah, yeah’s, ‘lookit this joker’s, and ‘oy, screw you too’s along with the customary slapping about, which he took with a graceful salute of his pint of Guinness. Ada Kilroy ( _Copy Department, three older sisters, even more hopeless than Steve on the dance floor_ ) puffed up like a peacock and rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t act like you’ve got some ace place to be. You don’t got a date neither.”

He _did_ sort of have an ace place to be, but he doubted the guys from work would understand that he’d rather be cuddled up to his steel knife of a best friend, listening to the latest Mercury Theater program and the soft scratch of graphite on paper. Besides, ever since he took Becca’s friend Leah out last week so she’d have an escort to the dance hall, there had been a pointed lack of _cuddling_ where Steve was concerned.

It was a familiar pattern and Bucky was well tired of it.

It went like this: Bucky would reach his limit and kiss Steve senseless. Things would be grand for a few weeks or months, until he heard the rumors start to circulate in the nastiest corners of Brooklyn or his sisters’ needed him to take a friend out with them, and he’d take some girls out once or twice. Nothing serious, just to keep attention off both their backs. It wasn’t like it was a trial—Bucky liked girls alright. But none of them at their prettiest could hold a candle to Steve at his most ornery, at least not for him. (Poor unfortunate soul that he was.) But as soon as Steve got wind that Bucky was taking a gal out, he’d stop it all, cold turkey. No kisses, no sleeping curled together in the same bed, no sly flirting, no back massages with those perfect artist’s fingers, and certainly no sex.

If he was hurting over it, Bucky would understand perfectly. But it was more like Steve had an internal switch he flipped at the first sign that Bucky was done with him, and he’d go back to being just an old pal, no fight at all about it. Like it was a foregone conclusion that he’d lose—but that wasn’t Steve. More likely, he was too full of old-fashioned honor to make time with someone behind a gal’s back.

It went like that until Bucky couldn’t help himself and laid another one on him, and it’d start all over again. It was nearly as predictable as the seasons by now—and jeez, was he ever in the thick of winter now. He took another long draught of his beer, finished his reuben, and made an effort to tune back in.

The guys had moved on from needling each other to commiserating over their mutual misfortune with women. Hugh Bolinari ( _new to Accounting, allergic to dogs and paying anyone back_ ) was groaning that his sister didn’t make any attractive friends for him to take out. Bucky couldn’t hold in his snort.

Hugh turned to him, eager. “Hang on, though! You’ve got loads of sisters, don’t you, Barnes? They’re bound to be dishes too.”

Frank burst into laughter at that and Hugh’s face went bright red. Bucky grinned and ducked his chin like a shy girl, unable to curb his instinct to fuck with him. (Bastard still hadn’t paid him back for the last time they’d gone out for drinks.) “Why, Mister Hugh!” he said in a high Southern falsetto and batted his eyelashes. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

The color bled from his face. He spluttered as the rest of the guys hooted like an unruly flock of pigeons. “I didn’t—that’s not at all—well, you all can—oh, take a hike, Barnes!”

Bucky laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Listen, Bolinari, if you can’t take a joke that small, my sisters would tear ya apart sooner’n you could say ‘hello’. They’re like sharks in the water.”

Lee Herman ( _Advertising Department, goes to synagogue, loves peanut butter more than his ma_ ) raised his glass, nearly empty, in agreement. “Very pretty sharks, Bolinari, but they’ll tear you apart all the same. You better stick to the Mary’s and the Sandy’s and leave the Rebecca’s to those of us who can handle some teeth.”

Bucky didn’t think anyone short of Steve could handle Rebecca Barnes, but he wasn’t about to volunteer him for it, so she could go on tearing apart the rest of the boys all she liked. He nodded and clinked glasses with Lee, giving Hugh a wink when it looked like he might not drop it.

No luck. Hugh was all het up with injured pride. “Well if you know so much, how come you don’t have a dame yourself?”

 _Ah, damn._ He kept his face jovial and clear, though, because men could be sharks too. And Bucky—unlike his scrappy best friend—had always been very good at making certain it wasn’t _his_ blood in the water. It was one of the many ways he’d never measure up to Steve. “Oy vey, Hugh. Don’t ya know it looks just as bad to know too much as too little? I scare ‘em away, see. I’m just too damn charming for my own good,” he said with a hangdog look, and joined in as the others barked laughter.

Jimmy Davis ( _Accounting Department, owes me a shift, cousin-in-law in the mob_ ) started in on the topic of which starlets he’d most like to get to know in the biblical sense. The particulars of a scale were outlined with much expressive gesturing, shoving, and overlapping interruptions from the whole mass of them. Bucky checked the clock behind the bar—it’d barely been an hour. Usually, he could enjoy stuff like this, be one of the guys—but all this talk of dames and wanting just made him wonder what Steve would have to say, in that quiet, wry tone of his. He missed him something awful, suddenly.

 _You always miss the summer sun the most in the dead of winter,_ he thought, and huffed at himself for being such a dumb sap.

Bucky finished his pint, tapped it and a few coins on the edge of the table with determined finality. “Alright,” he swung his coat on and nodded to the group as they turned. “That’s me beat.”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “What, Barnes, you out already? It’s barely six!”

“Abyssinia, boys,” he replied, and ducked out the door.

His feet picked up a nice rhythm on his way up the stairs to their apartment and he felt a giddy grin take him over at the idea of surprising Steve. Maybe he would be focused on reading and wouldn’t hear him sneak up. He wouldn’t be expecting him back for another two hours—Bucky stopped short at the door.

The rush mat was upside down, their little signal to each other that company was over. He remembered, with vivid clarity, a time last month when he’d come back early from Shabbat and walked in on Steve doing charcoal line studies of an extremely naked man. Bucky had stood there in the hallway with the door still hanging open like a certified genius, until the draft gave him away. The man had shrugged with louche casualness into a silk bathrobe and looked him over while Steve—always slow to pull his head out of his art—rubbed at his piece to smudge it.

“Why’re you dressing, Richard, I don’t got this shading right at all—oh!” he had said, when he finally looked up and saw Bucky there, standing still and wide-eyed like a prey animal in the sights of a gun. “Buck! You’re back early. Uh. Well, this is Richard. Richard, meet my pal Bucky Barnes. He’s in my art class. We’re working on figures, realism. He offered to model for me on our day off since I’m having such a time of it with this damn medium.”

“I’ll just bet he did,” muttered Bucky despite himself.

Richard either hadn’t heard him or chose to ignore him.

“Steve,” he had said, his voice warm and doting. He swept over, leaning close to look at the sketchpad. Bucky ground his teeth. “You’re always so down on yourself, honey, look at this arch! It’s already so much more expressive than your work last class.”

 _Honey??_ What was this no-account fink doing calling Bucky’s guy _honey_?

Steve’s cheeks flushed in pleasure and Bucky felt—too much. Pride, affection, arousal, betrayal, possessive anger, God in heaven, was he fucking twelve? _Get it together, Barnes_.

“It’s nice to meet you, Richard,” he had said, and hoped never to see him again.

Now, he stepped over the mat to open the door with no small amount of caution. This time he closed it behind himself quickly, because as much as he didn’t want to see other naked men in his apartment with Steve, he wanted Mrs. Harlough from next door to see them even less. He had enough of a time of it keeping them clear of the rumor mill without that.

“Like this?” he heard Steve ask, low, and a light female voice hummed encouragingly.

 _Aw come on, please don’t let this be what it sounds like,_ he prayed, because he might break if he had to see Steve fucking some strange girl on their couch. He knew they were on the outs, but that’d be stone cold cruelty. He slid his shoes and coat off, jangled his keys loudly as he hung it on their makeshift hook, hoping to give them time to get decent. He turned around.

Well. It definitely wasn’t what it sounded like. That was for damn sure.

In an echo of last month, there were charcoal nubs and pastel crayons scattered across the kitchen table, but this time it was a woman—about their age with frizzy red hair, and wearing all her clothes, thank God. She was leaning intently over her sketchpad and looking up occasionally to take Steve in to make some fiddly artist adjustment or other. And Steve—

Steve—well. Well.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky breathed, utterly overcome.

Steve was perched on the chair of the couch, legs crossed at the ankle like a proper gentlewoman, an unlit cigarette held with precise care as though about to take a drag. His head was tilted coquettishly towards it, even as he turned to face Bucky where he was standing like a gawping fish in the hallway. Steve’s face was made up just like a pinup girl on a calendar—skin soft and even, eyebrows delicately darkened in contrast to his gently tousled hair, which glinted like gold in the yellow kitchen light.

His eyelashes—heck, had they always been that long? They fluttered like black butterfly wings across his pinked cheeks when he blinked, and one look from those blue eyes—ordinarily striking—sent a spear of electric want through Bucky.

None of it was as overwhelming as the red, red, red shape Steve’s lips made around his name. He stood there like a dead hoofer for at least five hours before words made it through his ears to his idiot brain.

“—life saver in that terrible abstract art class I hadda take last year, remember that, Buck?”

“Wha-huh,” he replied, eyes fixed on the curve of Steve’s upper lip.

Had it been a perfect cupid’s bow yesterday? He’d always been a little dizzy over Steve, but this was another level. He was a fast talker, a smooth charmer, they all said so. Bucky Barnes thought on his feet. But trying to think with his prickly best friend looking like that—face all done up and the rest of him in his work duds… It was like muscling his way through quicksand.

The woman laughed and shook her head. “I think we broke him. I’m not quite done, Steve, d’ya mind much? Stay like that, just tilt your hand a bit, left—yeah.”

Steve darted another look at him and smirked a bit.

_Little shit knows exactly what he’s doing._

That was enough to bring Bucky back to himself. He straightened, slapped a smile on, and turned to introduce himself to the lady. He’d already been rude enough, and that look on Steve’s face was as good as a guarantee that his ma would hear about it, signed, sealed, delivered.

“Hi there, uh, I’m Bucky Barnes,” he said.

“Yes, Steve mentioned,” the woman said, still focused on her drawing. He felt a blush creep up the back of his neck.

“Right. Then I’m sure Steve already said this too, but I hadda glass too much at the bar with the guys so I’m not at my tops. Awful sorry, ma’am—what’s your name?”

“Sure as sorghum it ain’t _ma’am_ ,” she snorted, a loud and unladylike sound, and he immediately understood why Steve liked her. “I’m Luanne. Steve here’s doing me a real favor. I need a model to get my portfolio done and my shiftless cousin keeps canceling on me. Richard heard me moaning on about it and said Rogers was good for it, and thank all the farting saints he was. Hey!” Luanne pointed at Steve, who had started laughing. “I know I’m hilarious but I need you to hold that pose, mister.”

At the mention of Richard, Bucky narrowed his eyes. _Good for it, huh_. He made the mistake of turning to glare at Steve, but he got lost in how like a painting he already looked. And where did his freckles go? How in the heck had he disappeared all his freckles?

Jeez, every time Steve sent him one of those looks from under his lashes, he felt like he was being gut punched. His heart was going fast as a horse on the tracks, just thinking about getting him alone and messing him up a little. Smudge that lipstick just like Steve’s skilled hands smudged the charcoal to cast a shadow, mark him up. Make him Bucky’s personal masterpiece.

He was going a little crazy, honestly, and it struck him that it might be a weird thing to heat up over, his best guy looking like a gal. It wasn’t like he wished Steve was a girl or thought he oughta act like one or anything. Bucky liked what they had, liked the square cut of his jaw, his deep voice—the way Steve’s stubble felt on his thighs when he was being lazy about shaving. But Steve had always been sensitive about how short and thin he was, how it made strangers assume he was weak or foppish, so he made up for it by being as manly as he could in other ways. Bucky understood it, but it still exasperated him, how much Steve strained to prove himself to a world that didn’t deserve him. (Sometimes he was afraid Steve would prove himself right into his own grave.)

It was part of why Bucky was always keeping a wary eye on the grapevine, taking a dame out every other month or whenever he heard someone say something about the two of them that rang a little too close to the truth. He could handle it, his reputation could handle it, and even if his family found out, they loved Steve like a second son already. Bucky decided long ago that Steven Grant Rogers was it for him, even if he had to lie to everyone his whole damn life to keep them both safe. But Steve—he wasn’t like that. He was true to himself so loudly that it was almost deafening. A double life like that…it would tear him apart.

Besides, he thought amusedly, there was Steve’s masculine pride to consider. Becca thought _Bucky_ was bad, but he couldn’t hold a candle to Steve in that arena. Seeing him now, though, leaning back on his hand with casual grace, in full lady’s makeup and cool as a cucumber about it… Bucky was beginning to realize he’d made some faulty assumptions.

“Alright, alright, Rogers, I can see the light dyin’ in your eyes. I’ve got enough to flesh it out later, you can move,” Luanne announced.

Steve jumped down from his perch on the couch arm and shook out his hands and shoulders like a boxer getting limber for a fight. Bucky smiled helplessly at the utter _Steve_ -ness of it. 

“Thanks, Luanne, I was about ready to calcify up there,” he said, and ducked her light-hearted slap.

Bucky felt like he was dying, waiting to get his mouth on Steve until Luanne left, but he didn’t need to be _rude_ about it.

“Do ya mind if I take a peek at the sketch?” he asked. He was well-trained at this point not to assume all artist-types would appreciate him gawking. Steve got real squirrely about it if he didn’t consider the work done yet.

Luanne shrugged and passed it over before beginning to gather her materials in a cute little patterned bag. “It’s just the bones, but sure, have at it.”

She wasn’t lying—parts were rough shapes still, but she’d finished detailing the hands and Steve’s face. He looked even more like a dame on paper—he could see she had made his jaw a little slimmer, and she’d drawn some lines where a skirt would fall. “Is this common, using male models for pinups?”

She glanced at him warily and nodded. “More than you’d think, for faces. A nice mouth is a nice mouth, guy or gal. I’m lucky too, because I can try out poses in the mirror and see how they might look. It’s a crime there aren’t more women given work for it, when we’re the ones who know best what the female form looks like,” she said defensively, and then reddened a little.

Bucky laughed. “You got a point, there. Well, I hope your portfolio convinces ‘em.”

“Thanks. Bucky, you said? You’re all right. I’ll see you on Monday, Steve. Make sure you wash your face before bed, or you’ll regret it,” Luanne smiled, and gave Steve a quick squeezing hug on her way out.

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes, Luanne is a lesbian, thank you for asking.  
> Title is a lyric from the song ["When Somebody Loves You" by Frank Sinatra](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B85ZNio9jZs&ab_channel=KonulValizade). The song referenced at the beginning of this chapter is ["My Man", by Billie Holliday](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQlehVpcAes&ab_channel=gemurin). The Mercury Theater on the Air was a radio anthology show produced by Orson Welles in 1938 (which is when this fic takes place), which aired his historic "War of the Worlds" broadcast, and Bucky would absolutely go gaga for it. Also, I tried to keep the slang to a level where things still make sense with context if you don't know what the words mean, but if you want, I used this site as a reference for some of them: [Dirty 30s Slang](https://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/slang.html).


End file.
